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Phillip Cargile, known as the Wagon Man, came to Colorado Springs after the Waldo Canyon fire in June 2012 in hopes of lifting up residents here with his message of positive thinking. He is seen in June 2013. Cargile pulls a wagon train carrying stuffed cartoon dolls and a U.S. flag. Cargile and his wife, Cheryl, aka Wagon Lady, have moved back to the Pikes Peak region seven months after repeated tickets from Manitou Springs police prompted them to returned to their native Florida. Bill Vogrin / The Gazette

In December, I asked if Manitou - the mountainside tourist hamlet that embraced Homer the Duck, Emma Crawford and her runaway coffin, bizarre fruitcake-tossing contests and other quirky festivals and individuals - had grown too corporate, too Aspenized, for a man and his wagons.

For the past two years or so, Cargile pulled his wagon train in a random daily trek around the region spreading a message of "BE POSITIVE" that was printed on a sign that hung around his neck. A sign on his back declared: "Where there is no vision, the people will perish."

Sunshine, rain or snow . it didn't matter. Wagon Man was on the job in his trademark patchwork overalls and cowboy hat with his left hand on his wagon handle and his right hand stretched to the heavens, symbolically lifting up all who saw him.

Many days, he was accompanied by his wife, Cheryl, or the Wagon Lady, who typically wore her own sign: "A Happy Heart Is Like Medicine" and a straw hat.

Often I saw him trudging down West Colorado Avenue or on U.S. Highway 24, a large U.S. flag flapping behind him. Passing motorists honked, waved and yelled "Wagon Man" as he went by.

He seemed harmless enough, spending his days fulfilling his calling.

I stopped and talked to him in May. I found him friendly, quirky and interesting.

I asked where he was going and why he was pulling three wagons, one holding a portable radio, the second filled with shirts printed with his photo, which he sells, and the third holding a large, homemade cartoon doll and a flag.

He responded with questions.

"Are you a Christian?" he said, pointing to a large tree and explaining how religious denominations are like the branches all tracing back to a single root: God.

"Why do I walk?" Wagon Man said. "I walk for you."

I learned he and Cheryl were from Panama City Beach, Fla. He said he walked to Aurora after the theater massacre then walked to Colorado Springs after the Waldo Canyon fire in 2012. He and the Wagon Lady fell in love with the area and decided to stay.

Cheryl, who works as a substitute school teacher, soon found work as a caretaker for an elderly woman whose daughter owns a salon on Colorado Springs' west side. Wagon Man did odd jobs for the woman.

They rented a cabin in Manitou Springs and seemed to settle in.

All was fine until winter rolled around and Wagon Man was seen pulling his wagons down the middle of Manitou Avenue in a snowstorm.

Manitou Springs Police Chief Joe Ribeiro didn't like seeing Wagon Man in traffic and feared he might cause a wreck. He ordered him to pull his wagons on the sidewalks.

After several warnings, Ribeiro started writing Cargile tickets for being a pedestrian illegally in the street, first on Dec. 8, again on Dec. 9 and a third on Dec. 24. There would be a fourth ticket before the case reached court Feb. 18. Each ticket carried a possible $100 fine.

Following a strange 90-minute trial in which an emotional Cargile argued he was a vehicle because his shoes had small wheels in the heels, Manitou Springs Municipal Court Judge J. Martin Thrasher ruled the law pertaining to pedestrians in the street was too vague and he could not convict Cargile.

But he warned him to stay on the sidewalks. And after the trial, Ribeiro told Cargile that the City Council had enacted a new ordinance - I call it the Wagon Man Law - to require pedestrians to use sidewalks where they exist. (That doesn't sound very funky to me! Maybe Manitou has gone corporate after all.)

I spoke to Wagon Man after the trial, and he was defiant and confused. He vowed he'd continue to walk in the streets even as his wife pleaded with him to use the sidewalks until she could arrange for them to return to Florida.

I watched as he gathered his wagons and pulled them away from the Manitou Springs City Hall, where trial was held. He stopped by Fountain Creek and stared into the water. I wondered if I'd ever see him again.

Now, I doubt it, unless I ever visit the Panhandle of Florida.

On March 10, just three weeks after the trial, Phillip and Cheryl rented a car and drove back to Panama City Beach. We are Facebook friends, and I'd seen a post announcing their return and the celebration of their friends in that tourist town.

"It's gorgeous here," Cheryl said Monday when I reached her by phone. "Wagon Man is out walking in a storm. But it's a rainstorm instead of a snowstorm. It's 70 degrees here."

While Wagon Man is busy walking his wagons, Cheryl said she plans to return to substitute teaching to support the couple.

And she downplayed my suggestion they'd been run out of the Pikes Peak region by Manitou police, who even confronted Wagon Man at the Carnivale Parade, prompting parade-goers to step in and walk with him.

"I was ready to come home," Cheryl said. "I'm a warm-weather person. I was turning into a Wagon Lady popsicle. And we were both a little homesick."

She insisted they have nothing but love for the people they left behind here.

"We fell in love with that community," she said. "Everybody there was just precious sweet. We started out truly homeless and we ended up in a beautiful cabin in the woods with so many friends. We were so blessed."

While she declined to criticize police in Manitou, Cheryl said it was nice to be welcomed home by Panama City police who, she said, were glad to see Wagon Man out on the streets again with his wagon train.

Police there have stopped him. But with a big difference.

"They stop him and give him water because they're afraid he's going to get dehydrated," she said with a laugh.

I chuckled, too. Until I thought about the bigger picture.

I could understand if a unique character like Wagon Man caught flak in Colorado Springs. We're a big city now. But I kind of hoped Wagon Man had found a home in Manitou.